Final Reflection

Final Reflection

Game description 

Endpoint is a third person gauntlet style racing game you play as a robot that want to win his own refurbishment so you must race other players all bidding for the same prize of refurbishment.

The first trap is the elevator this is mainly focused on multiplayer you must survive the first elevator ride up using your air gun attached to your arm to blow the other players of the elevator so you are the last man standing.

Than you come to the electric grid the grid is a machine that has passive and hostile squares that are randomly activated you must avoid the hostile squares when they are active or you will die. While you are on the grid you will have to attack or defend against other opponents by using the air gun to blast enemies into electricity.

 The last trap is the wind tunnel the players must wait for the fans to stop to be able to navigate the trap if you are not behind cover you will be blown into the pit and have to start at the start but there are walls that are in the sandblaster to take cover behind to avoid getting blown into the pit. In the sandblaster you can use your air gun to blow other players out from cover and into the pit the player that reaches the endpoint first becomes the victor winning refurbishment.

Critique

A lot has changed about this concept  since we have started to develop it I think it has some nice features like the air gun and the electric grid but I think it still may need a bit more wow factor and more look and feel as in visual art style. The animation on the character has a lot of room for improvement but generally pretty good the sounds are simple but effective and not over powering.

 The traps themselves could be a little more complex and thought out but what has been achieved already is quite good. To summarize I like the concept of the game but I think it could have just a little bit more content and be a bit more polished but overall a good concept   

Conclusion

To assess the process we undertook for the development of this concept was a great experience for me to work within a group dynamic working with other people with different skills motivates me to learn and experiment with new ideas and processes. I am blessed to have had hard working people in my team but in saying that there were the acceptation of a few that could have pushed just a little bit harder. The process of the meeting was simple using Skype to meet two times a week to prepare for presentations and present work than we would meet briefly after desk critiques and presentations to discuss feedback and any issues that we might have. I am happy with the outcome of this concept design all the team members had input and had opinions heard and I think as a result of all theses things produced a better result the game play and mechanics, the textures and animations all look great and fit well and I think and it is because we had a good hard working team with good communication and I think the work reflects that.

I played a role or 3d Artist/Animator and sound designer so I had a big part to play I took part in designing levels and traps, level layouts and assets creation.

 I produced the electric grid and the elevator. I made the robot character from grays concept so Gary (Concept Artist) got to design the robot character but I modeled unwrapped rigged and animated him. I made the air gun sound and some ambient noise as well as an original composition for the music in the game.  So as for the least satisfying task would have had to be the promotional trailer recording and editing the footage and rendering is never fun so that was my least satisfying task I had to do. 

What tested my abilities was one the character and two the promotion trailer. The character was already set designed conceptually but I created a working model from the concepts the task of taking that concept and making a working 3d model that can be animated for the game. Having to rig and animate can be long I spent many tiresome hours on the animation but managed to have it working and in the build.

 The trailer was a annoying having to watch the same footage for three days editing and changing re rendering I lost a lot of patience with after effects and technical issues I had with it but after a lot of hard work and effort I got a cool trailer that I am proud of.  

I learned you can never be to prepared plan discuss give and receive feedback  everything to the detail test and then if it works good if it does not work disregard  and move on also that routine and reliability is the key to time management within a group if you can incorporate these things into a routine and communicate on the right levels and the team understands this the process itself becomes much easier and leaves more room to focus on other priorities.

· What plans do you and your team have for the next phase of development of your project?

We have made plans to add more content and and make a nice simple polished concept develop more characters and customization's and develop more traps

Sandblaster (Brownish)

Experience:

The wind tunnel is designed to blast robots with sand to strip off their paint, with a large pit at the base to catch any fallen robots/the removed paint. The wind blasts are constant and do not immediately push the player to a “killed” state, allowing some recovery.

1. Start at a narrower portion of the tunnel with some large walls near the entrance.
2. The tunnel expands slightly and so does the spacing between walls. The walls are also separated by gaps in the floor forcing the player to jump between them
3. The walls are now quite far apart and notably smaller. There are also more gaps to jump between.

Electric Grid (Blue)

Experience:

Dimly lit room (similar to a cave) with a glowing and sparking electrical grid. Platforms on the grid light up before electrocuting whatever stands on it, forcing the players to move from that platform. The whole room is one giant grid that ramps in difficulty the platforms that have been triggered stay lit.

1. As the grid is first entered the amount of safe platforms outweigh the amount of “active” platforms
2. The grid has some lines and zones of “permanently active” platforms as well as more “active” platforms than previously.
3. Along with permanently active zones and more active platforms, some wires hang from the ceiling and walls and upon touching, the player dies.

Cutting Room (Silver)

Experience:

Continuous conveyors leading the players through various cutting instruments designed to first, hack and slash and then leading to more precises instruments

1. The players start along a slower moving part of the conveyor dodging buzz-saws and other larger cutting instruments
2. As the pace of the conveyor quickens so do the quantity of buzz saws
3. As the conveyor reaches top speeds lasers are introduced as another element for the player to dodge.

Smelting Room (Black/Red/orange from heat and light)

Experience:

The smelter is a large object within the room with molten metal inside it, the player runs along a conveyor above the smelter with various crushers attempting to stop the players

1. The conveyor keeps a relatively straight path with crushers attempting to stop the player
2. As the players moves through the room the conveyor forks and takes different paths that other players may be split between. The conveyors begin to take more complicated and dangerous routes so the player must now dodge flaming exhausts as well as the crushers
3. The conveyor runs closer to the smelter and much faster. The players must then dodge blasts of exhaust, crushers as well as blasts of molten metal shooting up from the smelter.

Cooling Room (light blue/white icy look)

Experience:

Similar designs to an industrial cold room, dimly lit the cooling room has various obstacles such as exhausts of cold air freezing players, falling icy stalactites as well as a “temperature gauge” that the player must also keep an eye on as when it decreases the player slows in movement. As the players first enter they will notice a new GUI icon indicating their temperature within the room. As the gauge gets lower the icon updates with a “freezing” mask so the players knows what they are doing. The room will have some “warm spots” (maybe one halfway) where they can charge back their temperature gauge.

1. The players will notice a few pipes and stalactites as they first enter, with the room starting at a relatively warm temperature (so the gauge progresses slowly)
2. More pipes and stalactites as well as the room getting colder and narrower.
3. The room proceeds to freezing temperatures so if the player isn’t quick enough they will freeze solid

Elevator (Dark metal, yellow (danger lighting))

Experience:

The elevator is an incline lift moving at a rather slow pace will several obstacles coming from the walls as well as being heavily pvp focused.

1. 3 Incline lifts move at different speeds up and down the pathway (allowing other players to not have to wait as long). Not many other obstacles, just pvp focus
2. Decontaminate sprays which can knock the player off the platform, as well as pvp
3. Sprays and pvp and the track begins to falter causing the elevator to move in a more erratic fashion

Packaging (white, brown(boxes), coloured via containers and banners)

Experience:

The packaging room is a giant warehouse with lots of machinery constantly moving and blocking/re-opening paths. More designs and exposition to the story (T.V. equipment, sponsorship banners etc).

1. Players come in off the lift into a storage style warehouse with machinery moving constantly. A crane will occasionally drop a shipping container on the ground killing any players underneath it, and then picking it up again and continuing in a loop
2. Crane moving from above as well as other machinery picking up containers in a horizontal fashion blocking certain paths whilst opening others.
3. Cranes + other machinery as well as forklifts providing players with elevated platforms and other vehicles attempting to run over the player.

For The Prototype

All layouts will have a ‘sampler’ within the prototype level giving a taste of the functionality and gameplay EXCEPT for the elevator and the packaging stage. The progression will be similar to as follows;

Start in a small-scale wind tunnel (3-walls, quite short) before moving into a 6x6 electric grid with the “active” platform functionality implemented, then the cutting room will be one short mostly-straight conveyor with both buzzsaws and lasers equally. After that, we will enter a smaller version of the smelter including a forking conveyor with some crushers. The cooling room will be the final section, with a much shorter room to showcase the temperature gauge.